A Scientific Theology: Reality

Rating:
Summary: Informative, but . . . .
Review: Last year, I reviewed the first volume of Alister McGrath's A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY. This work seeks to study the methodology of the natural sciences and attempt to correlate and apply them to the study of theology. Prof. McGrath is clear that it isn't a work of systematic theology, but rather a methodological prolegomena to a soon to be published systematic theology. (For some reason, the book jacket for all three volumes describes it as a "systematic theology" anyway.)

As I pointed out, volume 1 (NATURE) contained a lot of interesting background studies that would be of help to anyone interested in the relationship between religion and science. On the other hand, the book came across as something like a collection of encyclopedia articles interspersed with a few observations by McGrath setting forth his own positions in a somewhat cursory manner.

Unfortunately, the same may be said of volume 2 (REALITY). This work is a discussion of the nature of reality from the "critical realist" perspective. Like volume 1, there are lots of background studies. You get four pages on the "Sokal hoax," an extend discussion of John Milbank's THEOOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY, a discussion of John Searle's THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITY, seven pages about postmodernist theologian Don Cupitt, etc. All of this is quite interesting, but how it all relates to Dr. McGrath's ideas isn't entirely clear.

As in volume 1, Prof. McGrath's positions aren't well developed. He constantly reminds us that truth is mediated by a community and that claims of "neutrality" are part of the allegedly discredited "Enlightenment project." Maybe, but is 2+2=4 or "God exists" "mediated" truths? Is it only more "complex" ideas, such as Anselm's theory of the atonement (which was apparently framed within the context of medieval law) that are "mediated"? I'm sure Dr. McGrath has a way of sorting out these questions, but sustained arguments shouldn't be hard to find in a three voume series of 400,000 words.

Rating:
Summary: Informative, but . . . .
Review: Last year, I reviewed the first volume of Alister McGrath's A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY. This work seeks to study the methodology of the natural sciences and attempt to correlate and apply them to the study of theology. Prof. McGrath is clear that it isn't a work of systematic theology, but rather a methodological prolegomena to a soon to be published systematic theology. (For some reason, the book jacket for all three volumes describes it as a "systematic theology" anyway.)

As I pointed out, volume 1 (NATURE) contained a lot of interesting background studies that would be of help to anyone interested in the relationship between religion and science. On the other hand, the book came across as something like a collection of encyclopedia articles interspersed with a few observations by McGrath setting forth his own positions in a somewhat cursory manner.

Unfortunately, the same may be said of volume 2 (REALITY). This work is a discussion of the nature of reality from the "critical realist" perspective. Like volume 1, there are lots of background studies. You get four pages on the "Sokal hoax," an extend discussion of John Milbank's THEOOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY, a discussion of John Searle's THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITY, seven pages about postmodernist theologian Don Cupitt, etc. All of this is quite interesting, but how it all relates to Dr. McGrath's ideas isn't entirely clear.

As in volume 1, Prof. McGrath's positions aren't well developed. He constantly reminds us that truth is mediated by a community and that claims of "neutrality" are part of the allegedly discredited "Enlightenment project." Maybe, but is 2+2=4 or "God exists" "mediated" truths? Is it only more "complex" ideas, such as Anselm's theory of the atonement (which was apparently framed within the context of medieval law) that are "mediated"? I'm sure Dr. McGrath has a way of sorting out these questions, but sustained arguments shouldn't be hard to find in a three voume series of 400,000 words.

Rating:
Summary: Disaster.
Review: This book reads like a collection of short stories, the sequential morals of which McGrath appears to think constitute an argument. McGrath does pause regularly from summarising others' works or discoveries to hint at his reasons for including these episodes, but I really couldn't help thinking that half of them were entirely superfluous. The stories were, of course, really interesting. For example, if you want to read the text of Benedict XII's definition of the beatific vision, see p. 312; if you want to know how an 18th century Venetian playwright conceived the relationship between the stage and the real world, see pp. 238-39; if you want in on Alan (McGrath spells it Alain half the time) Sokal's hilarious hoax, see pp. 188-91. But I can't point you to where McGrath offers any rigorous argument for his own theological positions.

Of course, with volume 1, Nature, published just the year before (I read and enjoyed Nature), and volume 3, Theory, published just the year after this book, McGrath didn't really have time to write Reality with care. So, among other evidences of desperate haste, Reality is painfully repetitive. You just can't imagine how many times McGrath feels it necessary to remind us that he thinks a scientific theology must be an a posteriori science. There are innumerable typos, and I don't think it would be too great an overstatement to say that half the works cited in footnotes are missing from the bibliography. One instance: of the six works cited on p. 258, not one appears in the bibliography.

McGrath does indeed have an astounding breadth of knowledge in both the natural sciences and in Christian theology, and his ideas about how they may be more fruitfully brought into dialogue are fascinating. Let's hope he'll have occasion and patience to think through the issues surrounding such dialogue again.